The Mediocrity Trap
How Most Leaders Unknowingly Destroy Innovation... Usually Irreparably
The Mediocrity Trap
How Most Leaders Unknowingly Destroy Innovation... Usually Irreparably
Written by a human, for humans, always.
One thing that I have learned in the world of business...
Is that many leaders claim to want innovation...
But do everything wrong to get it.
You see this in the largest organizations...
Where they created something innovative...
And then...
Nothing...
For years...
Even decades...
Being forced either to purchase truly innovative competitors...
Or eventually...
Be removed by those competitors.
But here is the question...
How does it happen?
How is it that so many organizations...
Especially after they get access to significant resources...
And claim to want and push for innovation...
End up being completely mediocre...
Failing to innovate at every turn?
The answer is actually far more simple than most people realize.
It has to do with a competing desire in organizations...
Between innovation and stability.
What do I mean?
Innovation...
The Exponential Innovation that truly redefines industries...
Is disruptive.
It requires you to break the current rules.
To change the perceptions of people.
To reveal that what was is no longer desirable in the face of what could be.
But...
What most leaders push for in their organizations...
Is stability.
Predictability.
It requires you to follow the rules.
They keep the perceptions of people focused where they are.
To make sure people keep coming back to what is.
This is the problem...
Which is what becomes...
The Mediocrity Trap.
See...
If you want to create more stability...
You end up squashing people’s ability to innovate.
You do not want people to question what is...
You do not want them to break the rules.
You want things to be repeatable.
Predictable.
Anything that could go against this end result...
Becomes a threat.
You cannot have an innovative product...
Because it becomes too risky.
You cannot have innovative employees...
Because you end up struggling to know whether their work efforts are in vain, and the results are too unpredictable.
So...
In order to create stability...
You require mediocrity.
People cannot go outside the bounds of what is...
You cannot take the time required to figure out whether innovative ideas can and will land.
Any questioning of the order feels like a threat to the establishment.
But this is where it gets worse.
Because when you set about establishing a predictable order...
You intentionally...
Or unintentionally...
Begin to design a culture with rules that start to be established.
Rules that people learn...
Quickly.
Now, this does one of two things.
Either...
People end up not questioning the system...
And “play it safe”...
Therefore, killing the potential for innovation.
Or...
The people who truly want to be innovative...
Leave.
They know their value and the potential of what could be...
And they also are aware that the future will eventually come.
They would rather create the future...
Then become a fossil of the past.
So, they go build the future elsewhere.
These types of individuals refuse to be mediocre...
And at the hint of mediocrity...
Sprint away.
What this does...
Is creates a trap of mediocrity.
The more stability you design...
The less innovative you are capable of becoming...
And the more mediocre everything becomes.
As stability is more firmly established...
Things become more predictable...
And to lose that predictability becomes a risk to the establishment...
While simultaneously squashing all ability for innovation.
The only way to have innovation...
Truly...
Is to allow for levels of unpredictability.
For challenges to be allowed and taken seriously, to the status quo.
But for so many organizations...
The desire for predictability...
Is not only a trap organizational structure...
But expands further to become a trap of psychology.
You begin to expect certain results and certain behaviors.
You become comfortable.
Anything that breaks that...
Begins to feel like a threat.
So now...
You are faced with a structural design that is reinforced by a psychological demand for safety...
Turning the organization into a model of mediocrity...
Often irreparably.
If you truly desire innovation...
Then you need to begin to become comfortable with a lack of stability...
A level of chaos...
The ability to question everything that has been created to this point...
And open to the idea of throwing it all away.
That is something that most people...
Are not willing to consider.
Which is exactly how they become trapped in mediocrity.
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